D&D (2024) How to balance the shield spell?

[Scott Christian]

I mean, that's entirely debatable given how many people have described their games, and balancing around bunches of encounters just doesn't work; look at the failures of the current CR.

I agree with this. Different tables play differently. Which makes the shield spell even less likely to be broken, because for many tables, it could be cast for but a fraction of their overall combat rounds. And vice-a-versa, it could last for all the combat rounds of another table. But because it is broke at one table, doesn't mean it breaks the game's combat mechanics.

Further, using 4 Shields in a row is generally not necessary, but rather dependent on the damage you'll take. The bigger point is that you can, if necessary, become largely immune to attacks against AC, which are easily the most common type of attack in the game.

You are correct. You can become very hard to hit for less than four rounds. Or, as a wizard, can become as hard to hit as your average paladin or fighter or cleric. Again, how does that break the game's combat mechanics? How does it disable the DM from creating encounters that challenge the PCs?

Uh, Shield absolutely works against ranged strikes, too. You realize that, right? It doesn't work against blasts, but it just straight up raises your AC by 5 with no other specifications. So it'll stop plenty of spells in that fashion, too. Eldritch blast? Firebolt? Shocking Grasp? Melf's Acid Arrow? Those all get stopped.

I did know that, but thank you for making sure. Always best to know we're on the same page. And yes, it does help against those spells. That actually makes it useful.

Will it stop Fireball? No, but so what? That doesn't detract from the incredible utility of a power that will boost your AC by +5 for an entire turn. Just because it doesn't cover all bases doesn't make it any less powerful, it just means it not completely broken. You can try to ignore that all you want, but it covers the most common kinds of attacks, including from Yuan-Ti. There are plenty of monsters that don't have non-AC based attacks, and they make up the bulk of the MM. That there are ways of getting around it doesn't mean that the original isn't badly built in the first place.

You are correct, the AC attack is by far the most common. No argument from me about that. As per my examples, the wizard can still easily get hit were the attacks to target them. If they don't, to quote you, so what? Target the wizard once. Make them throw a shield spell up (because if they don't they lose half their hp). Next round target them once, make them use another resource. If you do manage to hit - the wizard is in trouble. If you don't, to quote you, so what? The wizard still is being an awesome spellcaster. They are looking cool. They are actually being effective at defending themselves instead of always having to hide, turn invisible, run, climb up a rope and hide, etc.

And forgive me, but I have to snicker at the bolded part you wrote.

If you are relying on the ridiculous guidelines set by Wizards, then I hate to tell you but you're just not getting what it looks like in the wild. Trying to artificially cram in encounters to a day so that spell usage is balanced is inane and has basically lead to CR being broken and casters having too much power. I've had a few games where people have had 4 encounters in a day, but I've had many more where they had only one because trying to balance things around a number of encounters rather than how the game is actually playing out is foolish. And that's one of the big problems Wizards has in balancing: trying to rely on having multiple encounters every day, even just two encounters, is difficult because just tossing in encounters for balance is not good gamemastering. And trying to use that as a defense misses why stuff like CR is so damn broken as is.

I have never relied on the ridiculous guidelines set by the DMG. I follow the story. Sometimes there are no time constraints, and the group fights once, and rests, even if not needed. That's ok. If they feel safe doing it, good for them. Other times, the story compels the PCs to take greater risks. As a player in our last session, we were compelled via story to continue, and we almost died because of it. But, it was heroic and fun and had a nice story driven tension.
As far as CRs, I have sympathy for new DMs. It must be tough. But personally, my friends and I have never had any difficulty calculating the amount of risk to the PCs. We don't fudge rolls. We don't alter hit points at the last second. And we don't change things in the middle of the fight. PCs can run. PCs can die. It's just 90% of the time it goes their way.
So, as much as I have sympathy for new DMs trying to figure out the system, I don't have much sympathy for a seasoned DM that should be able to almost intuitively come to a conclusion that their party can't handle a fight. It's not nearly as difficult as people seem to make it out to be.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I agree with this. Different tables play differently. Which makes the shield spell even less likely to be broken, because for many tables, it could be cast for but a fraction of their overall combat rounds. And vice-a-versa, it could last for all the combat rounds of another table. But because it is broke at one table, doesn't mean it breaks the game's combat mechanics.

Yes, but what do the majority play? This is a fine view to have, but it ignores that what we've seen is that there are fewer encounters rather than more, which has subsequently unbalanced things towards casters because of decisions made late into the design process of 5E.

You are correct. You can become very hard to hit for less than four rounds. Or, as a wizard, can become as hard to hit as your average paladin or fighter or cleric. Again, how does that break the game's combat mechanics? How does it disable the DM from creating encounters that challenge the PCs?

The point is that it creates an unbalancing effect within a certain combination, largely because of the nature of how the spell is built. If it were even just a +5 against one attack it might be more okay. That it is +5 until the start of their next turn is what makes it overly tanky for people who have access to armor. Like, there's a reason they took it out of the Forge Cleric's Domain spells.

I did know that, but thank you for making sure. Always best to know we're on the same page. And yes, it does help against those spells. That actually makes it useful.

I mean, it was really unclear given that you specified melee attacks for whatever reason.

You are correct, the AC attack is by far the most common. No argument from me about that. As per my examples, the wizard can still easily get hit were the attacks to target them. If they don't, to quote you, so what? Target the wizard once. Make them throw a shield spell up (because if they don't they lose half their hp). Next round target them once, make them use another resource. If you do manage to hit - the wizard is in trouble. If you don't, to quote you, so what? The wizard still is being an awesome spellcaster. They are looking cool. They are actually being effective at defending themselves instead of always having to hide, turn invisible, run, climb up a rope and hide, etc.

And forgive me, but I have to snicker at the bolded part you wrote.

It's great to say "Oh, target someone else", but I feel like this is just a cop out. If it was so easy to target the wizard, I'd already be doing that. The point being made is that certain dips like Pallies and such can just make such ridiculous use of the power, even with fewer spell slots than a standard caster.

I also feel like you're missing that we're talking about not-wizards in this conversation, but okay.

I have never relied on the ridiculous guidelines set by the DMG. I follow the story. Sometimes there are no time constraints, and the group fights once, and rests, even if not needed. That's ok. If they feel safe doing it, good for them. Other times, the story compels the PCs to take greater risks. As a player in our last session, we were compelled via story to continue, and we almost died because of it. But, it was heroic and fun and had a nice story driven tension.
As far as CRs, I have sympathy for new DMs. It must be tough. But personally, my friends and I have never had any difficulty calculating the amount of risk to the PCs. We don't fudge rolls. We don't alter hit points at the last second. And we don't change things in the middle of the fight. PCs can run. PCs can die. It's just 90% of the time it goes their way.
So, as much as I have sympathy for new DMs trying to figure out the system, I don't have much sympathy for a seasoned DM that should be able to almost intuitively come to a conclusion that their party can't handle a fight. It's not nearly as difficult as people seem to make it out to be.

Uh, okay. Like, it's cool that you don't play whatever the DMG recommends, but it's weird if you reference some idea of how many rounds of combat you are supposed to get in a day.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Making something into a strategy game is a good thing IMO.

Still don't want level 1 Shield to block ancient dragons attacks as easily as goblin ones.

The dragon probably has at least +10 to hit, the goblin has less than +5.

The dragon has multi attack, legendary actions, and offensive options that shield doesn’t even interact with. The goblin has 1 weapon attack per turn.

It’s more powerful at low levels.

 

[mellored]

The dragon probably has at least +10 to hit, the goblin has less than +5.

The dragon has multi attack, legendary actions, and offensive options that shield doesn’t even interact with. The goblin has 1 weapon attack per turn.

It’s more powerful at low levels.

It blocks 5 damage at low level.
It blocks 40+ at high level.

It shouldn't scale like that.

Not unless you want level 1 cure wound to heal 25% of the targets hit points.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

It blocks 5 damage at low level.
It blocks 40+ at high level.

It shouldn't scale like that.

Not unless you want level 1 cure wound to heal 25% of the targets hit points.

You know what also scales like that? Armor! Maybe a Rogue should need to buy a Level 10 Studded Leather to stay protected at lvl 10?....

D&D math just doesn't work the way you think it should.

 

[Azzy]

I don't know. Every time that image appears on the net that I could fine, it's about the shield spell. But that doesn't mean someone didn't misuse the image once and then everyone copied them thereafter.

That image appears right above the Shield spell's description in the 1e PHB. Oddly enough, Shield has no material component.

Protection from Normal Arrows (a 3rd-level spell) does have a material component, but not a small sphere of any type (its material component is a piece of turtle or tortoise shell), so it's not that.

 

[mellored]

You know what also scales like that? Armor! Maybe a Rogue should need to buy a Level 10 Studded Leather to stay protected at lvl 10?....

D&D math just doesn't work the way you think it should.

Not sure what your point is, but it does give me another idea.

Shield
Your AC is 20 until the end of your next turn. Including again the triggering attack.
At higher level: increase AC by 1.

 

[Justice and Rule]

You know what also scales like that? Armor! Maybe a Rogue should need to buy a Level 10 Studded Leather to stay protected at lvl 10?....

D&D math just doesn't work the way you think it should.

I mean, that's not exactly true. You can have armor that levels up; it's just magic armor.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It blocks 5 damage at low level.
It blocks 40+ at high level.

It blocks almost half a wizard’s HP at level 1. The absolute number is completely irrelevant. It also blocks it pretty much barring a crit. At low levels it makes you basically immune to attack rolls that don’t crit for a round.

At high levels it probably isn’t blocking half your HP, it doesn’t make you functionally immune to attack for a round, and it’s exclusively blocking the dragon’s least powerful move. At that level, absorb elements is a better spell. Forcing half damage even on a failed save against dragon’s breath is much better than making 1 or 2 claw and bite attacks potentially miss.

It shouldn't scale like that.

Not unless you want level 1 cure wound to heal 25% of the targets hit points.

Cure wounds should probably heal a percentage, yes. Low level spells shouldn’t become next to useless. The ones that do should be fixed.

And shield should remain a reaction defense spell regardless. That’s the identity of the spell, and why it’s not just shield of faith.

 

[mellored]

It blocks almost half a wizard’s HP at level 1. The absolute number is completely irrelevant.

It also costs half the wizards spells at level 1.

Relative numbers matter.

Cure wounds should probably heal a percentage, yes. Low level spells shouldn’t become next to useless. The ones that do should be fixed.

Then it should cost a percentage of your spell slots.

If everyone had scaling slots like the 2014 warlock, then it would make a lot more sense to do it that way.

But you get both level 1 and level 9 spells.

And shield should remain a reaction defense spell regardless. That’s the identity of the spell, and why it’s not just shield of faith.

Agreed.